Northern California is regarded as a dining destination, home to some of the world’s top forward-thinking chefs. But as the deluge of stories about sexual harassment and abuse within the political, entertainment, tech and media industries continues, the Bay Area food world is grappling with its own history of misconduct.

Many in the restaurant industry describe a culture that has not only failed to eradicate the pervasiveness of sexual harassment but has fostered it.

The issue has plagued all types of restaurants, and it’s been embedded for decades. Even before he opened his popular Napa Valley restaurant Bottega in 2008, Bay Area chef Michael Chiarello was said to have a “propensity” for sexually harassing women who worked for him, according to claims made in previously unreported court documents obtained by The Chronicle.

Details in a sexual harassment lawsuit, filed in 2009 by a former Bottega pastry chef, depict a restaurant workplace fraught with blatant sexism and aggressively offensive misconduct by a celebrity chef.

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Chiarello, who did not respond to Chronicle requests to comment but denied the allegations at the time, is said to have kissed the pastry chef on the cheek on a daily basis, in addition to other forced encounters, such as shoving his hands between her legs while she was working, touching the inside of her thighs and saying he “was looking for sugar,” according to documents. The pastry chef also claimed that she was informed that he had a “propensity” for such harassment with other female employees he managed at Bottega and earlier at other restaurants.

The case was quietly settled in 2010.

Chiarello went on to open Coqueta in San Francisco roughly three years later. Another sexual harassment lawsuit was filed against him in 2016, this time by two Coqueta employees who described the work environment as “hostile, sexually charged and abusive.”

The second lawsuit alleged misogynistic, sometimes sophomoric behavior such as repeatedly mimicking sexual acts with food; in one instance, Chiarello reportedly held a baguette to his crotch and stroked it in front of employees. In another, Chiarello said two women in the dining room had become sexually aroused after speaking with him and left behind what he called “snail trails.” Chiarello denied these claims as well, and the case was also settled out of court.

Because of several unique factors — a patriarchal kitchen hierarchy, a transient workforce, an insular community and lack of formal employment standards — the problem is endemic to the industry.

In 2014, 66 percent of women reported experiencing sexual harassment from restaurant management, and 80 percent cited being sexually harassed by co-workers and customers, according to national industry data compiled by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United. Due to the transient nature of the workforce, escalated by what restaurateurs say is a dearth of viable job candidates for staff positions, consequences for perpetrators have been minimal.

Chiarello was named Esquire’s Chef of the Year in 2013 and, over the past decade, has made television appearances on “Top Chef”; this year, he opened his third and fourth establishments, Ottimo in Yountville and the adjacent Teatro Bistecca.

“This is part of our culture, unfortunately,” said Gabriela Cámara, the owner of Cala in San Francisco. “It’s basically a culture of men doing and saying whatever they want to women.”

Generations of chefs, sommeliers and servers have worked in settings similar to those described by the women in the Chiarello suits, one where they’re marginalized and often exposed to unwanted physical contact. To survive, they’re told to learn “how to hang with the boys,” said Tanya Holland, owner of Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland.

“I don’t know if people realize how bad the sexual harassment is in the restaurant industry, unless you’ve been in the industry,” said Betty Marcon, a former San Francisco restaurant owner.

In October, the Times-Picayune published an eight-month investigation into high-profile New Orleans chef John Besh’s restaurant group and revealed that 25 current and former employees accused the company of fostering a culture of sexual harassment. Besh has since relinquished his ownership stake, and businesses have quickly distanced themselves from him.

In the past two decades, the American culinary movement has reached new heights, especially in the Bay Area, where national trends are born and dining has become a form of entertainment. Yet as Bay Area restaurants have become global leaders — for the first time, the region now has more Michelin three-star restaurants than New York City — kitchen culture has, in many ways, remained mired in another era. In the 2009 complaint, the pastry chef said that she told Chiarello she didn’t want to work in an “abusive kitchen.” His response, according to the court documents: “This is about as hostile as the environment gets.”

Not only has such culture been tolerated, it has been embraced and exalted. It’s the sort that was glorified in Anthony Bourdain’s 2000 book, “Kitchen Confidential”: intense, aggressive, highly sexualized.

The culture persists in no small part because it has created an environment where abused employees are reluctant to speak out against their managers.

The restaurant world is a small one, where employees rely on reputation, name recognition and word of mouth for new jobs. As such, a code of silence develops, because of fear of retaliation, or perhaps because experience at a high-profile restaurant is perceived as a career builder.

In the 2009 Chiarello lawsuit, he allegedly told an employee who quit, “We’re going to ruin your career — you’ll never get anywhere in this industry if you leave Bottega.”

“It’s all networking, and then when you say something, people may not like it, and those people might talk to investors you need. It’s an incestuous environment,” said Preeti Mistry, the chef-owner of Juhu Beach Club in Oakland.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Preeti Mistry, owner of Juhu Beach Club in Oakland, shown cooking in 2016, says speaking out about sexual harassment is difficult in the restaurant industry because it’s such a close network.

Preeti Mistry, owner of Juhu Beach Club in Oakland, shown cooking...

It’s not easy for women to come forward with their stories, even if they wish to, given the hierarchical structure of a professional kitchen.

“These environments are enabled by the bosses, the people who run the kitchens,” said Cala’s Cámara. “Women need to be able to feel safe at work, and talk about the issues.”

When they opened Cockscomb in San Francisco in 2014, chef Chris Cosentino and partner Oliver Wharton made it a point to employ a human resources consultant. “It’s the proper way to do business. You give people the tools to succeed,” Cosentino said.

Yet because of slim margins and limited staff, independent restaurants rarely have formal outlets to field workplace complaints. According to the Times-Picayune, the Besh Restaurant Group, which is more than 12 years old and employs 1,200 people, did not have a human resources department until Oct. 11 — about a week before the story broke.

Bay Area restaurant owners have recently begun to pay more attention to human resources departments in their business models, and even now, the movement is largely confined to restaurant groups.

“We used to outsource it initially through a company that provides that service,” said Anya Fernald of Belcampo Meat Co., which has 300 employees and seven California restaurants. She implemented a human resources department two years ago. “There’s definitely a need for oversight,” she said.

Adriano Paganini’s Back of the House restaurant group, founded in 2009, did not hire its first director of human resources until 2015, when it already had more than a dozen locations, such as Beretta, Starbelly and several Super Duper Burger outposts. It now has 22 restaurants. Tacolicious, which opened its first brick-and-mortar space in 2010 and now has five locations, hired its first human resources director a year ago.

Though perhaps sparked by a rise in labor-related litigation, such as wage theft, the increased attention to human resources may also be a sign that restaurateurs are more conscious of workers’ rights and the need to curb the kinds of abusive incidents that have become commonplace.

Like most women who have worked in restaurants, Brown Sugar Kitchen’s Holland has stories of her own. She remembers early in her career a manager telling her to go home and change clothes. He wanted her to come back wearing something more revealing — a tighter, more form-fitting shirt and a shorter skirt, perhaps.

She was offended, but this was the kitchen culture of New York in the 1980s, she told herself. It was common for men in positions of power to make these requests to newly hired, young women, she told herself.

“I was 23 or 24 years old at the time and just kind of stunned. But there was no recourse for that behavior. You just accepted it and kept moving,” she said.

Over the next three decades, Holland would become one of the most recognizable names in the Bay Area restaurant world, but she never forgot about that manager’s request.

If you would like to share information or tell your story regarding sexual harassment in the Bay Area restaurant industry, contact jphillips@sfchronicle.com. Tips can also be sent to food@sfchronicle.com or by calling (415) 777-7503. For more ways to submit secure tips to The Chronicle: https://newstips.sfchronicle.com.